Community archive project documents historic UC strike
The UAW Fair UC Now Campaign Archive was collected by a cohort of union member fellows led by the UCLA IRLE
Willa Needham | December 3, 2024
In fall 2022, tens of thousands of academic workers across the University of California system joined forces to carry out the largest strike in U.S. higher education history. For six weeks, postdocs, academic researchers, graduate student researchers, teaching assistants, readers and tutors withheld their labor on 10 UC campuses, demanding increased wages and better benefits to afford the high cost of living in California.
The UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) and UAW 4811, with support from the UC Berkeley and UC Merced Labor Centers, led an initiative to document and preserve the historic campaign’s innovate actions, communication strategies and mobilizing logistics in the new “UAW Fair UC Now Campaign” archive. Selections from the archive can be seen on the IRLE’s Memory Work Los Angeles website, a digital repository of Los Angeles labor movement history.
The “Fair UC Now” contract campaign was organized by three UAW locals– UAW 2865, SRU-UAW and UAW 5810– which formed a coalition of 48,000 workers across UC campuses. The campaign ultimately won increases in compensation, improvements in childcare and paid family leave and stronger protections against bullying and harassment. After ratifying their contracts, members of the three unions voted to amalgamate and form UAW 4811, now the largest union at the University of California. The strike and contract victory reverberated nationally and energized a wave of organizing on college campuses across the country.
“Documenting events like the Fair UC Now Campaign supports future organizing and scholarship by preserving what is so easily lost— the experiences of working people struggling to improve their lives. Memory is a powerful tool for democracy.”
To document the strike and the years of organizing that preceded it, the UCLA IRLE and UAW 4811 launched a first-of-its kind multi-campus archival research initiative in spring 2023. IRLE project director and historian Caroline Luce led a committee of rank-and-file UAW members that recruited two dozen graduate student fellows from across the state to create an archive preserving the historic 2022 campaign.
The cohort of fellows, including scholars from the humanities, social sciences, arts and STEM fields, brought their unique research backgrounds to the collaborative archival collection process the following summer. Fellows organized weekly “skill shares,” offering lessons based on their knowledge of archival processing, oral history and confidentiality best practices.
“It has been an honor to work with these incredible students and build this archive,” Luce said. “I think we’ve shown what a community-based archiving process rooted in deep collaboration, democratic decision-making and union solidarity can look like.”
The resulting UAW Fair UC Now Campaign Collection documents the array of tactics and organizing strategies required to mobilize 48,000 workers across the state of California. It contains hundreds of artifacts, including oral history interviews, newsletters, campus communications, photographs and a variety of printed and digital ephemera.
“The strength of this collection stems from the diversity of experiences represented, from campuses to constituencies in our union,” said Monica Geraffo, archivist for the project. “There are memes, oral histories, surveys, menus, photos and newsletters that pertain to everyone, leaving room for both disagreements and resolutions.”
The fellows mutually decided to donate the collection to the Reuther Library at Wayne State University. One of the largest labor archives in North America, the Reuther is home to the records of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and named to honor the union’s iconic president. With this donation, the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign collection will take its place alongside hundreds of other collections documenting the union’s remarkable history.
On the long-term impacts of the archive, Tobias Higbie, IRLE Director and founder of Memory Work Los Angeles said, “Documenting events like the Fair UC Now Campaign supports future organizing and scholarship by preserving what is so easily lost— the experiences of working people struggling to improve their lives. Memory is a powerful tool for democracy.”
The UAW Fair UC Now Campaign Archive is currently being processed and will be available to researchers at a future date. View selections from the archive below and visit the Memory Work Los Angeles website for more details about the items and collection process.
Image captions:
- Striking UAW academic workers march on the California capitol building in Sacramento during the 2022-23 strike, UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection
- UAW strike leader Sammy Feldblum addresses picketers in front of UCLA’s Bunche Hall, UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection
- UAW member-created meme expressing disappointment that the contract failed to include a cost of living adjustment (COLA), UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection
- Lunch menu from the Strike Kitchen set up in front of UCLA’s Bunche Hall, UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection
- A chart shared with UAW members during the 2022-23 strike shows the process of reaching a contract settlement, UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection
